The present invention relates to a hair treating agent and a hair treating method. More particularly, it relates to a hair treating agent usable as a hair fixative excellent in setting property and washing removability and as a shampoo, rinse and hair dye excellent in conditioning effect, and a hair treating method using this hair treating agent.
Conventionally, an aqueous or alcoholic resin solution of a vinyl resin (Japanese Patent Publication (JP-B) No. 61-57803) an anionic urethane resin (Japanese Patent Lay-Open (JP-A) No. 6-321741) or the like has been used as a hair treating agent for setting hair.
However, the conventional hair treating agents manifest high hygroscopic property of a resin film, and therefore has a defect that the ability of setting hair becomes weaker under high humidity. Further, when a resin is hydrophobicized or the strength of a resin film is increased to improve the setting ability, the resin can not be removed completely in hair washing, problematically.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a hair treating agent suitable as a hair fixative, capable of retaining high setting property even under high humidity and being removed easily in hair washing. Another object of the present invention is to provide a hair treating agent having excellent conditioning effect also suitable as a shampoo, rinse, hair dye and the like. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for treating hair using these hair treating agents.
According to the present invention, provided is a hair treating agent comprising a resin (T) and a diluent, the resin (T) providing a resin film having a tan xcex4 of 0.3 or less and having a 100% modulus of 8 to 40 kgf/cm2 as measured after being conditioned at 30xc2x0 C. and 80%R.H. (relative humidity) and being at least one resin selected from the group consisting of vinyl resins, polyester resins, polyamide resins, silicone resins, cationic urethane resins, ampholytic urethane resins and nonionic urethane resins. In another aspect, the present invention provides a hair treating method for treating hair using such a hair treating agent.
Herein, tan xcex4 represents the ratio of the viscosity to the elasticity of a resin, and higher this ratio, the higher the viscosity of a resin. 100% modulus represents a stress when a resin film is elongated 2-fold, and the higher this value, the more easily a resin is elongated.